Welcome to DoIT

Welcome to the Department of Information Technology, or DoIT. We are responsible for providing technology services and policy planning for our customers, Seattle's citizens and City of Seattle departments and employees.

If you have any questions about DoIT or technology at the City of Seattle, you can send us email DoITreceptionist@seattle.gov or call us at 206-684-0600. Visit our Contact page for more contact info.

Latest News

CTO Bill Schrier retires to join e.Republic

Chief Technology Officer Bill Schrier announced that he is retiring from the City of Seattle on May 3, 2012, to become Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Government, with e.Republic of Sacramento CA. There he will be responsible for running the Digital Communities program, acting as Editor-At-Large for e.Republic's publications and helping with overall content development and strategic direction for the Center for Digital Government.

In 2008 Bill was named one of Government Technology's "Top 25 Doers, Drivers, Dreamers" of Information Technology, and in 2009 he was named to Computerworld's List of Top 100 CIOs. In 2009-2010 he was president of Metropolitan Information Exchange (MIX), an organization of sixty CIOs of major United States City and County governments.

Currently Bill chairs the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST) Operator Advisory Committee, the nationwide group of 20 cities, regions and states authorized by the Federal Communications Commission to build 4G public safety wireless broadband networks and is a member and workgroup chair of the FCC’s Public Safety Advisory Committee. He also chairs the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Broadband Committee.

Keep up with Bill after he leaves DoIT. He's an active blogger on digital communities and e-government issues and trends (schrier.wordpress.com and www.digitalcommunities.com/blogs/city-cio/), and you can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/billschrier.

Deputy director Erin Devoto will be acting CTO until a permanent director is chosen. See Mayor Mike McGinn's announcement here.

Seattle Channel receives record 21 Emmy nominations

Seattle Channel receives 21 Emmy nominations from the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Art & Sciences (NATAS), a record number of nominations for the popular city-operated TV station.

Read more

Seattle refutes journalism professor’s criticism on data accessibility

Public accessibility of police data is a concern for everyone and a priority for the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department.  In 2010, almost all Seattle Police records were made available online to anyone with an Internet connection while at the same time safeguarding the privacy of crime victims and those accused but not yet convicted of crimes.  One has only to visit seattle.gov/police to view our robust menu of data and information.

Seattle University Professor Tomas Guillen submitted an Op-Ed to the Seattle Times in October advising the Seattle Police Department to return to its former “paper-based” system.  We believe that Professor Guillen’s Op-Ed article contains errors of fact, is misleading and needlessly disparages the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department.

Read more here.

Mayor and UW president announce high-speed fiber broadband partnership
For the first time, Seattle will offer to lease access to its unused "dark fiber" to allow private companies to build broadband networks with speeds up to 100 times faster than is currently available.
Read the press release

Seattle's web site named best in country
Data.Seattle.Gov wins award for leading open data effort

Seattle.gov was named the country's best city web portal for an unprecedented third time. The award for Best of the Web in the city category comes from the Center for Digital Government.

Data.Seattle.Gov was also named a Digital Government Achievement winner in the Government-to-citizen category. Data.Seattle.Gov increases access to datasets generated by various departments of Seattle city government, including building permits, crime statistics, and Neighborhood Matching Fund grants.

"Seattle's web site is more interactive and transparent than ever," said Mayor Mike McGinn. "We're committed to opening up city government by providing online data and user friendly services to all our users. This award shows that we're leading the way in online civic engagement."

Seattle has a new Public Access Television Manager
Seattle Community College District VI (SCCD) has been selected as the new designated access manager for Seattle public access television. On July 1, 2011, the SCCD began broadcast of the public access television signal [channels Comcast 77 and Broadstripe 23]. They will also conduct all related public access television services. For more information, see the Public Access Television page.

Read the DoIT 2010 Annual Report - Acrobat PDF

Municipal TV
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Communities online
Check out Neighborhoods on the Net, which helps users find their online community with a list of blogs, wikis, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds associated with specific communities and neighborhoods in Seattle. Search the list by neighborhood, organizational name, type of web tool being used, or by district.

Community tech
Keep in touch with Community Technology issues and projects:

Tech Talk blog

Brainstorm, the technology E-zine

Website

Open data
Search and browse datasets here. Let us know if there’s something else that you’d like to see posted and we’ll see what we can do.

Seattle releases 2009 Information Technology Access and Adoption report
New Technology Study Shows Increased Internet Use
and Need for Faster Broadband Service, Education and Income Are Leading Predictors of Digital Divide.

Seattle Channel named the best government access station web site in the country for the third year in a row by the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA). See this and other Seattle Channel awards.

Government 2.0 Initiatives at the City of Seattle
The City is using social media, social networking and web 2.0 tools to improve how we deliver news and information, and better interact with constituents. This document explains some of the City's present Government 2.0 services and initiatives.